Adventures in babysitting

Saturday was nephew day at the farm.

The festivities started with a tractor ride.

Two nerds in a bucket

Followed by a hike.

Three nerds in the forest

A lesson in talking to turkeys.

Calling all gentlemen turkeys!

And a test drive of a couple of the deer stands in the back forest.

Two deer were actually sighted in the woods

We also took advantage of having two extra pairs of hands around and put them to work on our fall to-do list.

The task of burning up the massive brush pile we amassed over the past two weeks of tree trimming (to-do #16) took pretty much the whole day.

The uncle seems to be putting more effort into tending the fire than the nephew

Also on the list was freeing our trees from rope, twine and stakes that have been tied around them (#10).

I am not sure who had the bright idea to tie metres of binder twine (and hang a plastic plant pot) in this tree, but my bright idea of a solution was an almost 13-year-old and a Swiss Army knife.

And finally picking up metal from the driveshed floor (#7).

Two particularly big bolts snagged by the magnet

We don’t want to be the completely uncool aunt and uncle, though, so we made sure they had time to have some fun too.

Including building (playing with) fire,

There was perhaps more smoke than fire, although they did eventually get it going.

Making new friends,

The cautious feeling each other out phase

The bonding phase

And setting off firecrackers.

Separating some Black Cats

We even enjoyed an alfresco lunch altogether.

Cats and kittens included in the feast.

Pulling out all the stops for a hot gourmet feast.

A mighty pot of KD, kids’ favourite food

So nephew day can be summed up by child labour, knives, firecrackers, lighters, axes, fire and fluorescent fake cheese pasta.

Matt’s brother may never let us have the kids again.